Pittsburgh Politics

So, the new plan is now for community wireless Downtown by September. Coincidentally the NYT is reporting how New York City is also announcing today how community wireless for 18 New York City parks will be in place by August. Remarkably, the NY plan is only the current iteration of a plan announced in 2003!! There was even an initial contract let in 2004, but they are still trying to get off the ground in mid 2006. So if the resources in New York City (2006 budget $37 billion.. that is with a B) have had a hard time getting wireless in place, it is just another datapoint that the idea Pittsburgh could get wireless in place by the All Star Game was a tad bit ambitious. Even September will be quite an accomplishment. Thinking about the business side of this. Assuming some of the fixed costs of this get covered by the foundation supported $$, this could be quite profitable to this company. Downtown Pittsburgh has one of the most concentrated job densities in the country. (90-100K or so jobs in a half square mile.. not counting the regular flow of visitors). I would not be surprised if they get a decent subscription base for this service.

Almost no information on the technology. Are they using 802.11? Do you have to buy a special card? Only 50 poles is not that much coverage for standard 802.11B. In fact, I doubt if you can get much farther than 150 feet from ah access point before the signal drops off, unless you have extra nonstandard equipment. Never mind shooting it into buildings and offices.